Sitting, again. Sitting still feels like a treat, so I relish it for the brief time it will last before pain returns. Pain that sears through my legs, requiring my body to form a total, untouched horizon on my parents’ brown leather sofa. Occasionally, my knees rise to form the snowy tip of a tall, tall mountain (the Semi-Supine) rising out of the still silent Torso Plain. Then, more pain. At a stroke, the mountain dissolves. I may fall asleep.

Gonzalo skimmed us last night and now we have balding trees and a carpeted lawn. Still occasionally blustery, the fire is lit and I’m grateful to simply sit. Sit, before more pain. Is pain the new punctuation of my life? Perhaps.

A relationship ended last night. Ten months. Forty one weeks. Two hundred and eighty nine days. More pointless to count the days than to sit atop our new outdoor carpet and count its leaves, though. Sooner or later they’ll be raked and vacuumed. Not yet, though. There is green among the reds and the browns of the ended relationship: greens of friendship. These, I hope, will endure beyond our 289. The trees here may be balder, but bald trees give way to more sunlight.